Some Serious Happiness

Cheers To Beer And Capitalism

I love this story. It combines two of my favorite things, entrepreneurial spirit and craft beer. My love of craft beer started several years ago after a brief, but very enlightening love affair with good wine. I was fortunate to have a good friend who owned a Wine Styles store that hosted weekly wine tastings. She was also a Sommelier and a great teacher. Over the course of several months I learned what type of wine I liked and that great bottle of my favorite wine didn't need to break the bank.

When we moved to Georgia, I obviously lost this great resource for the best bottles of my favorite types of wine, but the craft brew craze was in full swing. There we brew pubs and craft breweries all over the greater Atlanta area and my husband and I started to explore. A committed Heineken and Guinness girl was about to get an education. We did brewery tours, learned about the process of making beer and tasted any sample that was offered to learn more. In my travels for work, I also sought out regional and local breweries and tried beer styles from across the country.

What I found is that I love unique and Imperial IPA's, all manner of stouts and porters and a few types of ales. In those categories I especially love special batch brews with unique flavors that you can not buy in the grocery store or even in cans or bottles at the brewery. Plus I prefer draft beer to any bottle or can. That is when the growler entered my life. A 64 oz draft pour of my favorite special batch or non-commercial brew that I could take home. And drink really fast, or lose.

You see, oxygen is the enemy of beer, and like soda, it will become both stale and flat once the growler is opened even if it is filled correctly at the tap. Many of the beers I enjoy are truly meant to drink slowly and not meant to be consumed 64 oz at a time. So I have not been as apt to purchase growlers from a brewery or tap house even if I enjoy the beer. That will all change in October.

Yesterday I came across an ad for Growler Chill, and simply had to learn more. It appears some industrious beer lovers in South Carolina have developed a countertop appliance that replicates the conditions of the keg by removing the oxygen and replicating the condition of the keg the beer was aged in. And do you know why they did this? Because the inventor's son asked for this product, fictional at the time, for Father's Day.

Thanks to this little bit of fate where someone wanted a product that didn't yet exist and someone else had the skills to make it, in about October of 2017 I will have an appliance that can keep three growlers brewery fresh after opening for three weeks. Now I can go to the new tap house in my town and bring home beers they bring in from all over the country. I will be able to take advantage of the brew pub opening three miles from my house and enjoy their unique creations on tap at home.

And when I travel to North Carolina, Tennessee and around my own great state, I can bring some great unique brews home and enjoy them on draft. Best of all, I can get what I like and my husband can get what he likes (not always the same thing) and they can be enjoyed until they are finished.

All because someone looked for a gift for someone else and said, "Wait a minute! There's a market for that." Cheers to beer and capitalism!